On Dec 3, 2009, at 18:25, Hugo Arts <hugo.yo...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 2:08 AM, Tony Cappellini
<cappy2...@gmail.com> wrote:
I have a list of 2300 strings.
When I call max() on the list, it returned an item with 37
characters. I am only passing 1 argument to max().
I know for a fact that the largest item has 57 characters, [...]
What are the assumptions when calling max on a list of strings?
Max gives you the largest item in the iterable. That's not the same
as the longest item. e.g.:
>>> max(['aaa', 'z'])
'z'
>>> 'aaa' < 'z'
True
When you're comparing strings, the 'largest' one is not the longest
string, but the string that comes last alphabetically speaking. If
you want the item whose length is greatest, use the 'key' argument,
like so:
>>> max(['aaa', 'z'], key=len)
everyone is spot-on. the whole crux of the problem is that "largest" !
= "longest", so that's where 'key' comes in. "largest" (max) means the
largest lexicographically, so it's ASCII sort order and presumably
code point order for Unicode -- pls correct me if i'm wrong. and of
course, the opposite for min/"smallest".
cheers,
-wesley
_______________________________________________
Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org
To unsubscribe or change subscription options:
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
